Following last month’s vote to increase incentives for property owners to replace conventional septic systems with new low-nitrogen systems approved by the Suffolk County Health Department, the East Hampton Town Board voted on Tuesday to streamline the process, further encouraging replacement of the old systems.
The incentive is aimed at improving ecologically degraded waterways. Excess nitrogen in waterways is blamed for promoting harmful algal blooms, which can render water unsafe for humans and pets and kill finfish and shellfish.
Under new amendments to the town code, a building permit will no longer be needed to replace a septic system. Instead, homeowners who voluntarily replace their conventional system without increasing its capacity or the property’s occupancy, or changing use of the premises, can get a limited septic registry authorization, which, board members said, is easier to obtain and does not require issuance of a certificate of occupancy upon completion.
In a separate resolution, the town board voted to restructure the financial incentive from a rebate-based system to direct payment to the contractor and/or reimbursement to the property owner.
The 2017 law creating an incentive program for replacement of conventional septic systems with new low-nitrogen systems, launched with a percentage of community preservation fund money, saw little initial participation. In an effort to spur residents to take advantage of the program, the town board, on the recommendation of its water quality technical advisory committee, voted last month to increase the maximum disbursement within water protection districts from $16,000 to $20,000, and from $10,000 to $15,000 elsewhere. There are approximately 7,000 residences in water protection districts, of roughly 19,000 over all.
The average cost of a septic system replacement is around $31,000, an official in the town’s Natural Resources Department told the board earlier this year, with out-of-pocket costs after town, county, and state rebates averaging $6,000.
The amendments followed votes last Thursday to make the higher incentives retroactively available to prior eligible applicants to the program, and to establish a “septic incentive additional allowance” process to allow for another rebate payment to homeowners with out-of-pocket costs for low-nitrogen system installations, to be awarded on a case-by-case basis.
Those votes closely followed public hearings during which several advocates for clean water spoke in support. “You can’t just wave a magic wand and have a neighborhood converted” said Sara Davison, executive director of the Friends of Georgica Pond Foundation, a group of property owners formed to combat degradation of the pond, which in recent years has experienced dense blooms of blue-green algae. “It’s property by property, home by home, and every home is a little different. A fifth low-nitrogen system is being installed near the pond since the group’s efforts began, Ms. Davison said.
Kevin McDonald, a policy adviser with the Nature Conservancy, and Kevin McAllister, the founder of Defend H2O and an expert in marine biology and coastal zone management, also spoke in support of the legislation. Mr. McDonald said the changes reflect lessons learned since the program’s introduction, and urged the board to “continue learning and make adjustments as you go forward. When that happens, there will be less nitrogen pollution in our groundwater and in our bays and harbors.”
Mr. McAllister also commended the board: “It’s very important that we get these systems in place in large numbers to have meaningful effects,” he said, but added that “as we’re grappling with sea level rise in low-lying areas, as much as we are focused on nitrogen and nutrients, let’s not lose sight of bacterial contamination. I’m afraid as the groundwater table is rising, many of our systems are immersed in groundwater. I suspect some of the hotspots we’re seeing with the various monitoring that’s going on is actually related to human source. That needs to be determined, of course, but needless to say, we’ve got to get these systems out of the ground.”
